Convicted paedophile, Gary Cooper found and groomed his victims on social networking sites

A 'devious' internet paedophile has been jailed for 14 years for raping a 12 -year-old girl after grooming her on a social networkingsite.

Father of four, Gary Cooper, 47, who called himself 'Chantelle' to befriend his victim, abducted and raped her twice days after making contact with her.

The girls' ordeal was described as wreaking 'incalculable psychological damage'.

Cooper joined the social network
Tagged.com and began grooming the schoolgirl. He told her she was
'gorgeous' and having got her phonenumber claimed to be the fictitious girls' father, confessing he found her attractive.

Just days later, he picked up the youngster from her hometown of Basingstoke, Hants, took her back to his house and raped her.

The terrified girls' phone battery had died and she could not call for help.

Prosecutor
Rob Bryan said: 'Cooper said he wanted to undress her. She said she did
not want that to happen. But he took off her bra, kissed her stomach and asked if he could take her trousers off. She said no. He threatened that he would cut them off.'

Cooper - who did not use a condom - raped her again five minutes later, despite her protestations that it hurt.

Police stormed the house, alerted by the victim's friend, who Cooper had earlier dropped at a house in Southend, Essex.

Cooper, from Hereford, told the officers: 'It's not like I have slit her throat.'

The
girls had been frightened, while in his car, that Cooper would murder
them if the victim did not go home with him, the court heard.

A medical examination confirmed the girl - who had been a virgin - had been raped.

In a statement the girls' mother said her 'very warm-hearted, loving girl' had been transformed by her experiences last July.

'There
is not an element of our lives that has not changed and it is hard to
imagine a time when this will not be part of our lives.

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My
daughter finds it impossible to talk about what happened and it is this
I find hardest to cope with. To me, the day of the rape will be the day
I lost my daughter.'

The Oxfam delivery driver, Cooper, had earlier pretended to be ‘Ashley Darling’, 15, to another teenage victim, the court heard.

He
later told her he was 19-years-old, suffering from throat cancer and
had 'only months to live', before eventually confessing to being in his
40s.

Over a period of nine
months, he would pick her up from school in Coventry and take her to his
house at weekends, ultimately getting her pregnant.

The girls' parents thought she was visiting a friend and even met Cooper, believing him to be the friends' dad.

The
pair had sex at least 32 times - the first occasion was in Cooper’s van
at Watford Gap service station, which she says she went through with
because she wasscared he
would make her walk home if she didn’t.

He refused to use a condom or
let her take the contraceptive pill, and the child had a termination
after falling pregnant.

The girl now suffers nightmares, an eating disorder and depression and has moved house in an effort to 'rebuild her life'.

After
his arrest, 90 indecent photographs of children were found on his
computer and other devices, along with explicit messages.

A social network site used by convicted paedophile, Cooper to groom his victims

Judge
Susan Evans sentenced him to 14 years and four months in prison
yesterday. Cooper sat slouched in his chair and showed no emotion. Evans
said:'You are a sexual predator. Your offending is highly manipulative and sophisticated.

'Your
intention was to have sexual intercourse. With your first victim, you
found out what her weaknesses were and sought to gain sympathy by saying
thingsabout yourself. It
seems to me it was a determined and sophisticated piece of grooming,
inventing as you did a daughter as a cover story for yourself.'

A
12 year-old stood 'no chance' of fighting him off, Judge Evans said.
She added: 'It is rare to find genital injury but it is a measure of
your brutality to that childthat that was found. The psychological damage to her is incalculable.'

Cooper
admitted sexual activity with a child, meeting a child following sexual
grooming, five counts of taking indecent photographs and making an
indecent video.For his second victim, he admitted meeting a child following sexual grooming and raping a child under 13.

He will be placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Det.Inspector
Storey said: 'This was a particularly awful set of circumstances
created by a devious man who targeted extremely vulnerable young girls.He then exploited them for his own deviant sexual needs.

'Cooper’s crimes serve as a warning to parents and teenagers about the importance of online safety.' He said.